KDs are designed/developed/inspired/mused/auto-suggested/indigested to make folks think; an especially uncommon experience among Democrats, Republicans, and jingoistic mainline denominationalists who continue to discourage dissent with their ever-threatening thought police.

Thursday, October 13, 2016

Because I've been
wrong about every election since 1972, I won't predict who will win on November
8.

Of course, I'd
never tell people who should get their votes during a worship service; not
because LBJ started the injustice of proscribing 1st Amendment rights from Christians
so happily expanding under "progressive" politicians, jurists,
educators, entertainers, media, and mainliners but because of what I just said
in the previous sentence-paragraph.

I've been wrong
so often about the qualifications and character of candidates as well as
election outcomes that I don't pretend to know who's best for anything with
absolute certainty.

I'm just guessing
when I vote for politicians who, like the rest of us, are so, uh, human.

Besides, it's not
my job to tell people who should get their votes.

It's my job to tell people who say
they're Christians to vote like it!

That means people
who say they're Christians should vote with Jesus in mind.

Jesus is the
focus and filter for everything said and done by Christians no matter who,
what, where, when, or why.

Christians are Christians in all things
with all people in all places at all times.

Christians are Christians in public and
private; saying and doing the same things no matter who, what, where,
when, or why.

Christians don't
pander to any audience and don't agree with the last person talked to like bad
sentences ending in prepositions.

Christians aren't
accused of lying because they always tell the truth with Jesus as Master, Bible
as manual, and common sense as governor.

Christians only
change their stories if corrected by Jesus, Bible, and common sense; and then
they confess error, pledge change, and ask forgiveness.

If I have to
explain that to you, you're not a Christian.

Obviously.

Back to November
8, I'm thinking anyone who campaigns for their candidate for the big
house as thaaaaaaat much
better than the other has two feet planted firmly in the air; and when Hillary
and Donald go after each other's past, present, and predicted futures, I wanna
scream rhetorically, "What's that I see in your eye?"

Frankly,
admitting there's still time for my mind to be changed, I'm not inclined to
vote for either of 'em.

Donald comes off
as a mostly mouthy offensive and often offensive while being defensive donkey;
noting donkey is a synonymatic euphemism for what's really on my mind. He
has turned avoiding taxes into an art form and can't brush off his boorish
brusqueness as lockerroom banter; recalling the adage, "What's deep in the
well comes up in the bucket!" Really, does anyone really know what
Donald really believes? I mean, c'mon, he's changed his positions on, uh,
just about everything as often as Hillary's "husband" has changed
paramours.

Hillary is a
pathological liar who doesn't blush at the butchering of babies a la partial
birth abortion, accepts money from sworn enemies of America and Israel,
has played politics with the lives of our women and men in uniform, and doesn't
recognize her shameless hypocrisy in claiming her opponent is a misogynist
while she enabled a sexual predator for a decade at minimum and did
her worst to discredit, defame, and destroy his and her victims.

Both belong on the
Mount Rushmore of condescendingly smug egomaniacs.

So,
again, when either say the other is not "fit" to be P, I wanna
scream rhetorically, "What's that I see in your eye?"

I was leaning
toward one over the other as a roll of the dice because I just can't imagine
having a notoriously scripted criminal as P; but then my
jurist-in-training son reminded, "Dad, you always taught us that the
lesser of two evils is still evil. You taught us that Jesus always has a
better way. So how can you now say you're going to vote for ___ because
she/he is the lesser of two evils? How are you going to explain that to
Jesus?"

Geez.

I can't stand it
when people quote me to correct me.

My boy brought
Cliff to mind.

Cliff is one of
the most faithful pastors, husbands, and dads that I've ever known; and I'll
never forget when he went to the microphone of a large church meeting in
Pittsburgh and yelled during a very contentious debate, "Vote for
Jesus!"

He's was right
then and now.

Vote for Jesus!

It's the only
Christian thing to do.

I'm not saying I
know for sure how
that plays out when it comes to Donald and Hillary.

I'm not
suggesting a write-in ballot.

I'm not
suggesting the other two make more sense.

I'm just saying
Christians vote with Jesus in mind.

Which of the two
or four or more best reflect Jesus in their words, actions, past, present, and
promises?

I'm not saying I
know for sure.

All I'm saying is
Christians vote with Jesus in mind.

It's the job of
Christians to do that and remind their sisters and brothers to do that.

Wednesday, October 5, 2016

Related to the
miracle of the last person using the stapler and duplicating machine having exactly the right
amount of staples and paper for
them obviating any need to consider anyone else may need
staples or paper because they had exactly
the amount needed and didn't know the stapler and duplicating
machine ran out after they used the exact
number needed by them, it seems there's never a last person
leaving the church to turn off the lights and lock the doors.

It's a miracle!

Or people are
afraid of the dark...or...

I had a really
neat wedding in Buffalo, New York back in September. Some of my favorite
people were there; and the couple had signs on the way to seating that
announced the nuptial as an "unplugged" service.

It was the first
time after about a thousand weddings that I'd ever seen that; and I really like
it.

I've had church
ladies in the past direct me to announce no flash photography during the
service, which I've always ignored because people like to have keepsakes of
such things and I never read anything about cameras at worship in the Bible and
never picked up the bill for any of that which means I should be more selective
about rubrics as a common courtesy, but cellulars are a lot different and a lot
more annoying than some aunt or uncle running up and down the aisle with a
flash camera.

Unless they're
powered off, cellulars will start playing Dixie
or Eight Days a
Week or Sweet
Home Alabama or Goodbye
Earl or some other loud and obnoxious and inappropriate electronic
nightmare during the exchange of vows or committal at the graveside or
consecration of sacramental elements or a plethora of other awkward moments.